{"id":518002,"date":"2026-07-09T18:43:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T18:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/518002\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T18:43:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T18:43:09","slug":"meow-wolf-taps-famed-l-a-animation-house-for-its-new-l-a-venue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/518002\/","title":{"rendered":"Meow Wolf taps famed L.A. animation house for its new L.A. venue"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For its upcoming Los Angeles venue<\/a>, experiential art firm Meow Wolf will focus on the art of storytelling, with a specific eye toward skewering our city\u2019s moviemaking magic. To help bring that vision to life, Meow Wolf has entered into a creative partnership with Titmouse, one of L.A.\u2019s most renowned <\/a>independent animation houses. <\/p>\n

The Hollywood-based studio behind popular series such as \u201cBig Mouth\u201d and \u201cStar Trek: Lower Decks\u201d will create animation that will be shown throughout the West L.A. venue, which is on target for a late 2026 opening at the Howard Hughes entertainment complex. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a move that represents a shift for Santa Fe, N.M.-based Meow Wolf. Over the last decade-plus, the art collective has grown beyond<\/a> its anything-goes, punk-meets-psychedelic roots into an organization with full-scale, maximalist installations in its hometown, Denver, Las Vegas, Houston and the Dallas suburbs. In the past, Meow Wolf kept most of its media in-house. <\/p>\n

As part of its larger-than-life participatory art installations, Meow Wolf L.A. will feature a mix of live action and animation, the former filmed by Meow Wolf in its Santa Fe studio. Meow Wolf\u2019s James Stephenson, a senior VP with the company and its creative director of emerging media, said the degree to which the L.A. exhibition will lean into various animation styles necessitated an outside partner. Titmouse\u2019s work, in development by a number of directors with contrasting tones, will be shown on a variety of formats, ranging from cinema screens to full-room projections. <\/p>\n

\u201cI really believe in animation as an art form, and I know the Titmouse folks do too,\u201d Stephenson says. \u201cAnimation is made by artists. It\u2019s made by artists with their own hands. It\u2019s something that is still very rooted in craft.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meow Wolf\u2019s L.A. space is set in a former cinema complex, and will champion its location, taking guests on a journey through a converted movie house and beyond, into a sci-fi-inspired fantasyland<\/a> with sentient spaceships and a 30-foot-tall mushroom tower. Meow Wolf creatives have spoken of the fantastical movie theater as one that will feature animated, self-aware candy before attendees enter the main exhibition space, making Titmouse\u2019s work some of the first art guests will encounter. Titmouse co-founder Chris Prynoski has said the studio has lined up at least six directors for the exhibit. <\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

An in-progress art installation destined for Meow Wolf L.A. at the art collective\u2019s Santa Fe, N.M., headquarters. The L.A. exhibition will feature animation from Titmouse. <\/p>\n

(Gabriela Campos \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n

Titmouse, says Stephenson, is the right partner because \u201cthey\u2019re known less for a house style, and more for a house vibe.\u201d Over the years, Titmouse has been behind such diverse shows as \u201cScavengers Reign,\u201d owning a Jean Giraud influence rooted in French and Spanish surrealism, the lively \u201cJentry Chau vs. the Underworld,<\/a>\u201d with an unique color palette that took inspiration from anime and Chinese mythology, the exaggerated comic book feel of Adult Swim\u2019s \u201cMetalocalypse,\u201d<\/a> and the approachable yet expressive tone of \u201cStar Trek: Lower Decks.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cMeow Wolf\u2019s vibe is similar to Titmouse\u2019s vibe,\u201d Stephenson says. \u201cIt\u2019s artist-first, artist-driven, independent and kinda edgy. They are always trying to find the edge of what\u2019s possible. They try to see how far they can go, and it\u2019s done for fun and in the spirit of taking risks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prynoski says working with Meow Wolf will give Titmouse a sense of artistic freedom it doesn\u2019t always have when delivering content for more traditional Hollywood partners. He says the multi-director approach is a callback to the early days of Warner Bros. Animation, when individual creators put their own stamp on Looney Tunes material. <\/p>\n

\u201cI use Bugs Bunny as an example,\u201d Prynoski says. \u201cYou\u2019ve got a Friz Freleng Bugs Bunny short. You\u2019ve got a Chuck Jones Bugs Bunny short. You\u2019ve got a Tex Avery Bugs Bunny short. They\u2019re all different versions of Bugs Bunny, and people who are really paying attention can tell which director directed each one. Even though to the layman, these are all Bugs Bunny, but if you lined them up, they are drawing in different styles, sensibilities and techniques.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prynoski says that was a centerpiece of his pitch to Meow Wolf, noting that characters will reappear in multiple installations, each handled by a different artist. Meow Wolf L.A., in fact, will be the firm\u2019s most character-driven exhibition, as guests will follow the storylines of three main protagonists throughout the space. <\/p>\n

In announcing the partnership, Meow Wolf and Titmouse released an image from an animated work directed by Luca Vitale. It features a key character having a moment with a hummingbird and it\u2019s done in an elegant, slightly anime-influenced style. It\u2019s an image full of movement, reflecting a character in transition with inviting pastels and bold dashes. <\/p>\n

\u201cI like that image because I think it captures some of the sense of wonder that we want people to feel,\u201d Stephenson says. \u201cThe character is having an encounter with the elusive nature of creativity and reality in a way that makes them have a different perspective of what\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other contributing animation directors to Meow Wolf L.A. include Space Dawg, Felix Colgrave, Alexander Vanderplank and Phim\u00e9mon Martin, and Jun Ioneda.<\/p>\n

Titmouse\u2019s partnership with Meow Wolf will extend beyond the L.A. exhibition. The two will be working on the development of Meow Wolf New York, which is slated to open some time after Los Angeles, and are collaborating on a planned animated series, which Prynoski is spearheading. <\/p>\n

Meow Wolf exhibits are the result of sometimes hundreds of disparate artists coming together in a shared space. Distilling that into a signature, singular style for a series could be a challenge. Stephenson pinpoints some guiding principles. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou really need to feel the hand of the artist,\u201d he says. \u201cYou need to feel a DIY aesthetic. You need to feel the materiality. Those are very specific to what we are.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For its upcoming Los Angeles venue, experiential art firm Meow Wolf will focus on the art of storytelling,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[7269,1228,1628,442,498,499,500,257175,16772,236815,257176,501,156,257177,243504,25917,257173,111,139,69,257174,140050,234915,4576],"class_list":["post-518002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-animation","tag-art","tag-artist","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-bugs-bunny","tag-character","tag-creative-director","tag-creative-partnership","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-house-vibe","tag-james-stephenson","tag-l-a","tag-meow-wolf","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-prynoski","tag-santa-fe","tag-titmouse","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}